Sometimes when I am playing with a background, it turns out uuuggly, but I never throw it away because one day it may come in handy for something else. This is the case for the following 2 cards, I got both pieces from my reject box and though I didn’t like them as a whole, I am quite happy with the mix of colours once they’ve been cut out into flowers (Row of Poppies die 99137 from Memory Box).

I stamped the wording (Evidence of Art LCS055 from Wendy Vecchi) in sepia ink onto off-white card, then spritzed Sunshine Sparkle Perfect Pearl over. I used Magic Mount under some of the flower heads but glued the rest down and applied a strip of brown leaf ribbon across base. After assembling card layers, I put Glossy Accents over flower heads and set aside to dry.

2.

I sprayed some Wild Honey Distress Stain onto watercolour paper, then ran it out to the right with a wet paintbrush. Dried with a heatgun. I glued the flowers into place, again lifting some of the heads with Magic Mount. I stamped the wording (from same set as card #1) in black Archival ink and use a black Zig pen to draw the roots extending down from the stems. After assembling card layers, I added dots of gold Liquid Pearls above the flower heads to resemble pollen drifting off in the breeze.

3.

I cut the flowers from plain watercolour paper, then hand cut some strips of grass from leftover card to bulk out the flowers and make them look a bit different from my other cards. I coloured these and flower stems, with Bundled Sage Distress re-inker using a water brush. The poppy heads I used a combination of Worn Lipstick, Picked Raspberry and Mustard Seed Distress re-inkers.

On my background watercolour paper, I first mapped out my desired shape with water using a flat brush before dropping re-inkers Iced Spruce and Forest Moss onto it, using same brush to move ink around. Dried with a heatgun.

Glue grass at back of flowers and attach to card. Cut out birthday word in yellow card and glue down. Stamp ‘happy’ down wording onto scrap of same card, cut out and mount into position. Assemble remaining card layers.

4.

This background was created with a combination of blue/green Dylusion ink sprays. When dry, I stamped over alphabet in white and circles in teal ink. Dried with a heatgun.

The poppies were cut from plain orange card. I sponged a little Spiced Marmalade Distress ink and sepia around edges of flowers. After I had attached them to card front, I applied some Spiced Marmalade Distress Stickles and ran a white Sharpie pen along their top edges.

The base was initially texture paste, but I didn’t like it so covered it with Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain Distress embossing powders, then heat set. The butterflies were from a scrap of brown alcohol ink card cut out using a tiny Fiskars butterfly punch.

The flower heads of this die have been cut out and layered up multiple times, some have 2 layers, others have up to 5. After gluing them on top of each other to create different heights, I coloured them with a red Spectrum Noir pen and then poured Glossy Accents over to give them that shine.

The background was created with Dried Marigold and Iced Spruce Distress Stain Sprays on white card.